DISCEPOLI. — Designation of Protestants also called Campbellites, because they were followers of Tommaso Campbell (1763–1853). He was an Irish Presbyterian who, having emigrated to the United States in 1807, set out to unite all Christians by adopting a name that was genuinely biblical and non-sectarian. For this purpose he separated from the Presbyterians and, assisted by his son Alessandro (1788–1866), founded in 1810 the “First Church of the Christian Society.”
In order to unite all the sects, Campbell proposed that: a) the Bible alone should be the norm of faith, worship, organization, and government; b) deductions drawn from the Bible, although they might be true doctrines, should not be obligatory for the Christian; c) confessions of Faith, although useful, should never be regarded as essential conditions for belonging to the Christian Church. The two Campbells, convinced that Baptism by immersion was necessary, joined the Baptists for a time and had themselves rebaptized, but later separated from them in 1829. A few years later, in 1838, they were joined by the followers of Barton W. Stone, who, having been a Presbyterian minister, had become a “Christian” (v. CRISTIANI). The question then arose of what the name, which had to be strictly biblical, should be: Stone wanted them to be called “Christians,” while Alessandro Campbell wanted “d.”; confusion consequently arose, since they were called indiscriminately by both names. Even after the schism of 1906, in which the more conservative officially assumed the name Church of Christ or Christians, while the progressives adopted the definitive name of d., some confusion can be detected among Protestant writers, as can be
seen in the World Missionary Atlas and in the Directory of World Missions. The d. number more than a million in the United States, but are few in England. They support many missions, chiefly in India and Latin America.